Travel

Taking the Banks out of Edinburgh | Travel

There’s little to be said about Edinburgh that hasn’t already been described in the pages of Banks, or Rankin. Where they describe docks, I can describe those same docks. There is water, and melancholy, and history. Where they describe buildings, I can describe those buildings. Those classic, ancient architectures, stippled in stone with coarse grey paintbrush. The spires, the seemingly endless spires – each carrying a different Scottish icon, holding up the brass weights of statues in weeping angel dress.

It’s historic, yes. And beautiful, too. There are streets of cobbles surrounded by a patchwork of history and culture, a complex composition of european pop up bars, quaint English bookshops and coffee parlours, and a scorch of bleak Scandinavian coast just visible beyond the city silhouette. But this is tired ground, worn down with the feet of travel bloggers and photographers and callus-fingered journalists, the grass of Edinburgh Castle brown and flat with boot marks deeper and older than the building itself.

So perhaps it’s time for a new look at Edinburgh. A fresh take, if there is one to find. A way of exploring Edinburgh, not through images that can be found on Google, or description that can be found in AirBnB reviews. But through the aroma of Edinburgh – the sensory experience, the voices, the smells, the visual noise that explodes in front of you, the fire in your throat as you swig a dram of whiskey.

– Nikki McCaig

What To Expect From The Perfect AirBnB Experience | Travel

Travelling is amazing. Breathtakingly rewarding and achingly exciting, wherever you go. Whether you’re lounging by the pool in a steaming tropical climate, hiking through the hills up to some lost ancient tomb, or strutting down a European high street in your tallest shoes and smartest peacoat. You can learn so much from travel, and from the experience of indepent adventure. The world is a big place, with a million and one things to go and visit. There is so much to be said for exploring it piece by piece.

But, when travelling away from home, whether you go alone or in a group, there are so many factors you need to consider. Cultral changes, climate differences, the financial support throughout your trip…Everything will be new, and scary. And whilst that fear is great for adrenaline, it’s perhaps not so great for your own personal safety.

Different countries, different lifestyles and different experiences can be overwhelming, and disorientating. You could touch down in what feels like a completely different planet, and have no idea of what to do once you get there. Which is where your accomodation should come in. Your hotel, your travel lodge, your hostel, or, as a more popular travelling trend unveils itself, your Airbnb.

How To: Travel The World With Anxiety | Travel

When I was 8 years old, I used to suffer from car sickness. When I was 9, I suffered from train sickness. When I was 10, it was coach sickness. When I was 11, it was plane sickness. When I was 12, it was bicycle sickness. By the time I was 13, it was everything sickness, and I realised there might be something else going on.

Whichever label you choose to give it; travel anxiety, carsickness, agoraphobia, panic disorder…admitting to yourself that you are afraid of travelling is never going to be easy. I know, for myself, between the first pricklings of anxiety and the end result of a full blown panic attack, I usually end working myself up into experiencing what I’ve rather appropriately nicknamed ‘car crash thoughts’. This is where I find that, over a very short space of time, whenever I feel particularly trapped on a form of public transport, that my brain will unhelpfully provide a horribly rapid stream of increasingly panic worthy thoughts, from ‘you’re going to panic and embarrass yourself’ to ‘imagine if you were sat in an exam right now and panicking, you’d definitely fail’ to ‘what if the plane crashes and everyone you love dies but you and you’re left alone forever’ and always ending on that old reliable ‘what if you have a panic attack on your driving test, and crash the car, killing somebody else?’. The car crash thoughts, for me, will always end in an actual mental car crash, and usually the overwhelming urge to run screaming back to the safety of my house and normality and boring everyday life where anxiety can’t quite reach me, which, if you’re stuck in a airport 3000 miles away from home, is a little less realistic than first imagined.